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Topics: Donald Trump, News, Politics, US News, World News
Rhiannon Ingle
Topics: Donald Trump, News, Politics, US News, World News
Donald Trump made one controversial promise he vowed to honour if he became president again.
On Wednesday (6 November), the 78-year-old Republican was elected as the 47th president of the United States after beating Democrat candidate, Kamala Harris.
Trump has already vowed to do a number of things during his second term, after first stepping up to the presidential role back in 2016, but there's been one promise he swore he'd fulfil 'within two seconds' of being brought back into power.
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Trump, who is the first convicted felon to serve as president in the US, was convicted in New York in May of this year of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a bid to conceal a $130,000 payment that he made to to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the days before his first election win eight years ago.
Judge Juan Merchan ruled at the time, however, that the sentencing would be delayed until after the 5 November election, but never shut down the notion that Trump could serve jail time.
Even if Merchan does sentence Trump in the coming weeks, however, he's likely to use his power as president-elect to appeal against any charges.
Trump will not, however, be able to issue himself a special pardon, being that the New York case centres on state charges.
He has a number of other state and civil cases against him as well as the federal cases against him for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the mishandling of classified documents.
On many occasions, Trump has shared his plans of firing special counsel Jack Smith to end the federal cases against him.
Smith's charges against Trump accuse him of illegally taking classified documents from the White House and allegedly resisting the government’s attempts to retrieve such materials.
He was also accused of deleting CCTV footage of his staff moving boxes at his Florida home.
The federal indictment claimed that details on the US nuclear weapons programmes, potential vulnerabilities of the nation and its allies, and plans for retaliatory military attacks were in some of the documents.
Florida-based US District Aileen Cannon dismissed the case back in July but prosecutors have appealed her ruling.
"Oh, it’s so easy. It’s so easy," Trump said last month when asked by conservative radio host, Hugh Hewitt, whether he would 'pardon' himself or 'fire Jack Smith' if reelected.
"I would fire him within two seconds," Trump promised.